Are
we there yet?
After
years of struggling to consolidate and effectively utilise data center
resources, the IT industry has, it could be said, been successful in creating
new paradigms and new technological innovations to better use less-for-more. At
least that's the theory. The practical application lacks some credibility as
the myriad of factors around sizing and provisioning usually results in
more-for-the same. This conundrum is further complicated by the ever-expanding
demand for desktop resources. Delivering applications to the desktop using
current technologies requires a lot of back-end resourcing.
The
term 'Desktop' applies to any device that can receive applications and services
from the data center. 'Desktop' isn't any longer restricted to the familiar
workstation/PC. It can be a cell-phone, a tablet, notebook, terminal-client,
Smart TV and so on. This plethora of gadget-types further strains the back-end
provisioning and resourcing needed to deliver to millions of devices in remote
locations 24X7 or, even high numbers of users within the LAN. 'Less
infrastructure for more usage' becomes a rather thin and reedy mantra when
mobility, TV and *BYOD is included with desktop PCs and workstations as clients
for remote delivery of applications and services.
*BYOD
= Bring Your Own Device
Things
have to change
Given
the well-known issues around delivering applications to the terminal client,
via *VPN, *VDI and from the 'cloud' paradigm, and to the mobile device using
Telcos, 'cloud' and the data center, it isn't surprising that up to now the
user experience hasn't been a particularly enjoyable one. You can only push so
much data down a copper wire, across multiple *WAN devices and over long
distances. Add to this the multiple operating systems and protocols being used
and the lack of co-operation between market-leading vendors and you have a
recipe for slow, attenuated and intermittent reception. There is also a lack of
integration of many desktop applications when they finally get to the device.
*VPN
= Virtual Private Network
*VDI
= Virtual Desktop Interface
*WAN
= Wide Area Network
I
want it now and then?
The
future is on the desktop and it isn't going to be based on massive silos of
hardware in multiple data centers around the globe. User and business demands
dictate that IT providers move away from the traditional infrastructure
delivery systems to a more elegant and lean provisioning of applications and
services to the multiplicity of ever-changing devices and user-needs across the
globe. Not great news for hardware vendors but, an irreversible trend has
developed that isn't going away any time soon.
The
desktop of the future, or the mobile dash-board, or whatever new epithet is created
to label the client device, will be able to receive applications from multiple
sources. Probably, the 'cloud' will play the major role as the delivery model.
A cloud is still the product of a data center but, instead of using specific
and particular data centers, applications will be in repositories around the
world within environments like *AWS. Where today business invests in data
centers to deliver applications, the future will be more about outsourcing to
cloud and applications offered on subscription rather than owned by the user or
business recipient. This is already happening and it can only increase. For
example, imagine you need an application like *SAP or a *CRM but, you only need
it for a couple of people for a couple of weeks. To purchase licences, carry
out installation and provide the resources needed to run these large and
complex applications is costly, time-consuming and financially pointless if you
don't need to use them every day for years. Why not simply subscribe to a
service in the cloud that can deliver the applications only when you need them
and charge only for usage? This makes good business sense and removes the pain
associated with owning and installing, maintaining and updating software
monsters. Recently, Adobe announced that future upgrades of the applications in
its Creative Suite will be from the cloud ONLY. With monthly or yearly
subscription for the application/s from software vendors like Adobe, you will
be able to finely adjust your budgets for each contract right down to the tools
you use. For small graphics offices, students and individuals this is a massive
advantage.
*AWS
= Amazon Web Services
*SAP
= German Software Company Product
*CRM
= Customer Relations Management
The
Future?
The
future of the desktop will be all about flexibility, functionality and
interoperability. It's going to be a long while before LINUX, Android and
Windows are interoperable. Vendors are not keen to give too much away in a
gesture of co-operation. However, with the development of more elegant VDI
delivery and desktops that can provide the breadth of functionality users will
demand, plus new and exciting paradigms of vendor-agnostic application delivery
that do not rely on back-end resources but, utilise the client resources, we
can look forward to applications and services available when we need them from
anywhere, anytime and for only as long as we need them.
There
are no 'thin-clients anymore. Even cell-phones have multiple *CPUs and lots of
memory. Only the size and shape of clients are changing and getting more
compact. The processing power available from clients is huge and an almost
untapped resource. This offers exciting new opportunities for moving processing
and application support to the front-end and away from the data centers.
*CPUs
= Central Processing Units / Computer Processing Unit
And
finally...
In
the future all desktops will be a simple framework written in a language yet to
be created but, I suspect, close to Java and *XML. Configurable and able to
agnostically respond to any application need while completely abstracted from
the underlying operating system and independent of the data center for
resourcing. Some might say that VDI is close to this state but, I would hazard
that it's not close enough.
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